Two studies done in 2009 and 2010 found that 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that humans cause global warming. But what would a larger sample of the scientific literature show, extended all the way up to 2011? You're invited to help find out, by participating in an anonymous 10-minute survey where you will be reading the abstracts (summaries) of ten randomly selected technical papers on Earth's climate published between 1991 and 2011. The survey was created by physicist John Cook of The Global Change Institute at Australia's University of Queensland. Mr. Cook is the creator of one of my favorite climate change websites, skepticalscience.com. He authored one of our special Earth Day 2013 essays, Closing the Consensus Gap on Climate Change, from which I have pulled Figure 1 below. Mr. Cook is lead author on a new paper called "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature," to be published in the next month or so in Environmental Research Letters. The paper analyzes the same papers included in the survey you're asked to participate in, and the researchers plan to compare the results. Each of these 11,944 papers written by 29,083 authors and published in 1,980 journals included the keywords "global warming" or "global climate change" in their listing in the ISI Web of Science database. After reading each abstract, you will be asked to rate the level of endorsement within the abstract for the proposition that human activity (i.e., anthropogenic greenhouse gases) is causing global warming. There will be these choices available on a drop-down menu for you to choose from:

1. Explicit Endorsement with Quantification: abstract explicitly states that humans are causing more than half of global warming. 2. Explicit Endorsement without Quantification: abstract explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a given fact. 3. Implicit Endorsement: abstract implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gases cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause. 4. Neutral: abstract doesn't address or mention issue of what's causing global warming. 5. Implicit Rejection: abstract implies humans have had a minimal impact on global warming without saying so explicitly. E.g., proposing a natural mechanism is the main cause of global warming. 6. Explicit Rejection without Quantification: abstract explicitly minimizes or rejects that humans are causing global warming. 7. Explicit Rejection with Quantification: abstract explicitly states that humans are causing less than half of global warming. 8. Don't know.

When you are all done, the survey will let you know how your average score for the ten papers compares to the rating given by the authors. The survey took me about 8 minutes to complete, and it was interesting to see the tremendous diversity of research being done on global warming in my random sample. I'll post about Mr. Cook's results when his paper is published in the next few months.

Figure 1. Two recent studies have sought to measure the level of agreement in the scientific community in different ways and arrived at strikingly consistent results. A 2009 study led by Peter Doran surveyed over 3,000 Earth scientists and found that as the scientists' expertise in climate change grew, so did the level of agreement about human-caused global warming. For the most qualified experts, climate scientists actively publishing peer-reviewed research, there was 97% agreement. Alternatively, a 2010 analysis led by William Anderegg compiled a database of scientists from public declarations on climate change, both supporting and rejecting the consensus. Among scientists who had published peer-reviewed climate research, there was 97% agreement. However, it is worth pointing out that science is not decided by majority vote. This is articulated concisely by John Reisman who says: "Science is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship. It is evidence that does the dictating." Figure and text taken from Mr. John Cook's special Earth Day essay, Closing the Consensus Gap on Climate Change.

Halton Arp photographed quasars that showed clear signs of being in close proximity, due to the fact that matter could be seen streaming from one to the other, indicating they were gravitationally attracted to each other. Yet, these quasars had radically different redshifts which, according to theory, ought to indicate that they were very remote from each other.

This has not been refuted, although NASA did put out a paper which suggested the photographs might be suspect.

Too funny... Just got back from reading Lee's post on "close proximity".

Quoting CybrTeddy:God forbid we fix the Earth to be a better place to live in without a financial motivation...

Seriously, the amount of money we pump into bailing out the banks every year would be enough to fix many serious problems with Earth while sending humanity to the stars all at once. The fact that global warming is even a debate disgusts me, and you can just tell the people arguing against it are feeding out of the hands of the politicians who represent oil and natural gas producing companies instead of people. Even if it's not man-made, we can do something about it.

Just my 2c.

Here's my 10 cents, my two cents is free....

There are millions of things we could fix in this world with money we spent on other things that are debatedly less important.

It's simply not the way the world or financial system works.

I see no reason to cry more over bailing out banks over fixing climate change than over launching rockets into space instead of feeding the hungry.Yet people whined and complained about one but not the other. I have little opinion on either matter, but to those who do find a problem, i see no reason to make a big deal of it

It's just not gonna happen that way.Even if it would be nice, it's wishful thinking.

Quoting Neapolitan:Being a martyr doesn't make one right; after all, while Arp is sticking to his guns of martyrdom, mountains of observational evidence have come in since he first published 50 years ago, every bit of it suggesting that he is simply wrong. Ditto Hoyle.

But this is a climate change forum, so dealing strictly with that subject, I'd say the contention that because 97% of climate scientists believe humans are causing the warming, it must be wrong, is far more disingenuous. And that seems to be the route that some denialists take; to them, corroboration equals conspiracy. But that just ain't so.

Appeals to authority are, of course, a logic trap to be avoided. But stating that 97% of climate scientists agree with the anthropogenic origins of warming isn't that; it's more akin to 97% of oncologists agreeing that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Yeah, perhaps the majority is mistaken--but not listening to them would be pretty suicidal...

Halton Arp photographed quasars that showed clear signs of being in close proximity, due to the fact that matter could be seen streaming from one to the other, indicating they were gravitationally attracted to each other. Yet, these quasars had radically different redshifts which, according to theory, ought to indicate that they were very remote from each other.

This has not been refuted, although NASA did put out a paper which suggested the photographs might be suspect.

With regard to the mountains of observational evidence - Big Bang theory said that the 'expansion of the universe' ought to be decelerating. In the 80s, it was shown that the galaxies were actually accelerating. This ought to have been the final, killer blow for the theory.

Guess what they did? They invoked a whole new force of nature and called it 'dark energy', to explain the acceleration. No explanation of what this energy is, or how it exerts its effects. Is that good science?

* AT 203 PM AST...DOPPLER RADAR AND SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATEDHEAVY SHOWERS AND AN ISOLATED THUNDERSTORM ACROSS THESEMUNICIPALITIES. RAINFALL RATES OF UP TO TWO INCHES CAN BE EXPECTEDWITH THESE SHOWERS. THIS WILL BE ENOUGH TO CAUSE FLOODING IN URBANAND POOR DRAINAGE AREAS AND SHARP RISES ON AREA STREAMS AND RIVERS.

MOST FLOOD DEATHS OCCUR IN AUTOMOBILES. NEVER DRIVE YOUR VEHICLE INTOAREAS WHERE THE WATER COVERS THE ROADWAY. FLOOD WATERS ARE USUALLYDEEPER THAN THEY APPEAR. JUST ONE FOOT OF FLOWING WATER IS POWERFULENOUGH TO SWEEP VEHICLES OFF THE ROAD. WHEN ENCOUNTERING FLOODEDROADS MAKE THE SMART CHOICE...TURN AROUND...DONT DROWN.

These are ghost storms at 384 hours is very uncertain some kind of forecast,like levi said yesterday MJO coming in late may to early june is very possible the formation of the first storm of the season ,no more than that..The real deal is when GFS shows a possible storm in 150-200 hours...

No really. Like we all don't know that. I was just posting the models to the possibility come 10 to 14 days from now and will continue to do so.

Quoting yonzabam:While I'm a believer in AGW, the contention that because 97% of climate scientists believe humans are causing the warming, it must be so, is a tad disingenuous.

There is a very strong pressure to conform in science. I happen to believe that 'Big Bang' theory is completely wrong, and have posted an alternative theory, which accords much better with known laws of nature, on the cosmology section of several science forums. So, I'm a Big Bang denier.

Cosmologists who have made observations which they believe contradict Big Bang theory have been frozen out of their chosen profession, Halton Arp being the prime example. Fred Hoyle turned down an offer to join NASA because he wasn't prepared to fall in line with Big Bang theory, and eked out a living writing books.

Although we may like to think that scientists are primarily concerned with the truth, in reality, they're much like the rest of us, and more concerned with earning a living, having the respect of their peers, and the social status that their profession gives them. Not many are prepared to be martyrs, like Arp and Hoyle.

Good post - those are definitely factors. Others are threatening actions such as Heidi Cullen calling for the decertification of weathermen who were skeptical of manmade global warming. Another example is the Climategate emails where the collaborators tried to force out journal editors that allowed skeptical articles. There is definitely push and pull in play here behind this consensus level.

"This post provides a striking example of the impossibility of continued growth at current rates—even within familiar timescales. For a matter of convenience, we lower the energy growth rate from 2.9% to 2.3% per year so that we see a factor of ten increase every 100 years. We start the clock today, with a global rate of energy use of 12 terawatts (meaning that the average world citizen has a 2,000 W share of the total pie). We will begin with semi-practical assessments, and then in stages let our imaginations run wild—even then finding that we hit limits sooner than we might think. I will admit from the start that the assumptions underlying this analysis are deeply flawed. But that becomes the whole point, in the end."

God forbid we fix the Earth to be a better place to live in without a financial motivation...

Seriously, the amount of money we pump into bailing out the banks every year would be enough to fix many serious problems with Earth while sending humanity to the stars all at once. The fact that global warming is even a debate disgusts me, and you can just tell the people arguing against it are feeding out of the hands of the politicians who represent oil and natural gas producing companies instead of people. Even if it's not man-made, we can do something about it.

These are ghost storms at 384 hours is very uncertain any kind of forecast,like levi said yesterday MJO coming in late may to early june is very possible the formation of the first storm of the season ,no more than that..The real deal is when GFS shows a possible storm in 150-200 hours...

"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society."

American Chemical Society:

"Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem."

American Geophysical Union:

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system — including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons — are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century."

American Meteorological Society:

"It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide."

American Physical Society:

"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now."

These are ghost storms at 384 hours is very uncertain some kind of forecast,like levi said yesterday MJO coming in late may to early june is very possible the formation of the first storm of the season ,no more than that..The real deal is when GFS shows a possible storm in 150-200 hours...

Quoting mrsalagranny:I saw too that the almanac for Alabama said June 17-19 hurricane threat.Lets pray it doesn't come true.I know we can only be lucky for so many years, but I pray this will be another lucky year for us all.

Quoting SFLWeatherman:Jun 1-5: Hurricane threat Forecast for Florida by the Farmer's Almanac and a big MJO pulse that won't reach the basins until late May and early June and now the 12Z GFS!!:)

I saw too that the almanac for Alabama said June 17-19 hurricane threat.Lets pray it doesn't come true.I know we can only be lucky for so many years, but I pray this will be another lucky year for us all.

"This post provides a striking example of the impossibility of continued growth at current rates—even within familiar timescales. For a matter of convenience, we lower the energy growth rate from 2.9% to 2.3% per year so that we see a factor of ten increase every 100 years. We start the clock today, with a global rate of energy use of 12 terawatts (meaning that the average world citizen has a 2,000 W share of the total pie). We will begin with semi-practical assessments, and then in stages let our imaginations run wild—even then finding that we hit limits sooner than we might think. I will admit from the start that the assumptions underlying this analysis are deeply flawed. But that becomes the whole point, in the end."

Quoting yonzabam:While I'm a believer in AGW, the contention that because 97% of climate scientists believe humans are causing the warming, it must be so, is a tad disingenuous.

There is a very strong pressure to conform in science. I happen to believe that 'Big Bang' theory is completely wrong, and have posted an alternative theory, which accords much better with known laws of nature, on the cosmology section of several science forums. So, I'm a Big Bang denier.

Cosmologists who have made observations which they believe contradict Big Bang theory have been frozen out of their chosen profession, Halton Arp being the prime example. Fred Hoyle turned down an offer to join NASA because he wasn't prepared to fall in line with Big Bang theory, and eked out a living writing books.

Although we may like to think that scientists are primarily concerned with the truth, in reality, they're much like the rest of us, and more concerned with earning a living, having the respect of their peers, and the social status that their profession gives them. Not many are prepared to be martyrs, like Arp and Hoyle.

Being a martyr doesn't make one right; after all, while Arp is sticking to his guns of martyrdom, mountains of observational evidence have come in since he first published 50 years ago, every bit of it suggesting that he is simply wrong. Ditto Hoyle.

But this is a climate change forum, so dealing strictly with that subject, I'd say the contention that because 97% of climate scientists believe humans are causing the warming, it must be wrong, is far more disingenuous. And that seems to be the route that some denialists take; to them, corroboration equals conspiracy. But that just ain't so.

Appeals to authority are, of course, a logic trap to be avoided. But stating that 97% of climate scientists agree with the anthropogenic origins of warming isn't that; it's more akin to 97% of oncologists agreeing that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Yeah, perhaps the majority is mistaken--but not listening to them would be pretty suicidal...

Quoting Gearsts:This year the NAO means different things? Waters like to warm when is positive and dont do anything when is negative lol

The degree of warming and cooling is dependant on other factors, not just the phase of the NAO. Last week featured a lot of cloud cover and precipitation across the MDR as a result of an upward pulse of the MJO, which kept the skin temperatures down as a result. Trade winds are still below average despite the positive NAO.